As the year draws to a close, microblogging site Twitter has released a series of statistics relating to the past 12 months’ activity on the platform.

The company has stated that the site’s 267 million users shared up to 125 million hashtags every day during the year, as well as 500 million GIFs. Furthermore, Twitter also shared some of the biggest and most popular tweets that had been posted to the site this year in a video on its @TwitterData account.

It is perhaps unsurprising that the topics most tweeted about this year include politics, celebrities, the winter sports in Pyeongchang and the FIFA World Cup. However, on this side on the globe, it may be surprising that both the most liked tweet and most tweeted at account belongs to South Korean K-Pop boyband BTS.

The most liked tweet of the year was sent from the account of the 7-piece boyband, which included the popular hashtag #InMyFeelingsChallenge – something that related to US rapper Drake’s song ‘In My Feelings’ released earlier in the year. The BTS tweet, which can be seen below, generated 1.8 million likes.

Interaction such as this also meant that the band was the most tweeted global celebrity. This is impressive as the band has a follower count of just 17.2 million, putting it outside of the top 100 most followed accounts on the platform. To offer some perspective, the most followed account on the platform belongs to Katy Perry, who has around 107 million followers.

The second most-liked tweet of the year came from former US President Barack Obama, whose tweet after the Parkland shooting generated 1.6 million likes. This was followed by a tweet containing a video of a dog from an account with fewer than 3,000 followers, with this tweet getting 1.4 million likes.

Obama continues to be popular on the platform, with a GIF of the former president being the most quoted tweet on the site this year. This GIF features Obama’s iconic mic drop. He was also the second most tweeted politician, with no prizes for guessing that the top one was current US President Donald Trump.

In terms of retweets, this year’s most retweeted tweet comes from YouTuber El Rubius, whose tweet that simply said “Limonada 2.0” generated 1.5 million retweets. This didn’t top last year’s most retweeted tweet, which belonged to Carter Wilkerson and his request for chicken nuggets.

Along with sharing some of the year’s most popular tweets and figures, the platform has encouraged users to tweet their own favourite moments of the year, using the #ThisHappened hashtag.

Drawing from a broad pool of experience that ranges from university studies in English Language to his work as a medical receptionist in a busy GP practice, Alan fits right at home as Engage Web’s Account Executive.